Taken Hostage (8 page)

Rolando scrambled from the Saturn’s backseat,
still looking faintly sick. He obeyed, grabbing the cop’s gun and
belt from the gravel before sliding into the cruiser after him.
‘We’ll follow you to the hospital,’ James said.

Tiffany swallowed a lump in her throat as she
settled into the Saturn’s passenger seat, finally alone with James
again. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about … this,’ she asked, making a
gesture to indicate Rolando’s presence and the complications it’d
caused.

James shrugged. ‘I don’t know, I just wasn’t
thinking. I’ve gotten really used to keeping quiet about
everything, you know?’

Tiffany frowned at him.

‘I didn’t think it would turn into such a
catastrophe,’ he said. ‘Rolando was supposed to meet me at the
turn-around a couple hours after dawn with the rest of the money,
ready to go.’

‘Who
is
Rolando?’ Tiffany asked. ‘And
what do you mean ‘the rest of the money’? Have you robbed other
banks?’ She braced herself for a confession of relentless criminal
activity.

‘Just one,’ he replied. ‘Rolando and I robbed
a bank in Connecticut a couple months ago. We hid the money here
and laid low for a while. Then I took care of the bank in New York.
I did it alone, took you hostage and stole a car. Basically, I did
everything differently so they wouldn’t make any connections
between the two robberies.’

Tiffany was silent as she let his words sink
in.

‘Rolando and I used to work together on the
same construction crew,’ he added. ‘We planned this together.’

‘So he’s coming to Mexico with us?’

James nodded. ‘While I robbed the bank in New
York, he took care of things at the border. He used some of the
cash from the first robbery to bribe a shift of customs agents.
They know to let him and whoever’s in the car with him pass without
question, regardless of any alerts from the police. Of course,
we’ll give them the rest of the cash he promised them as we pass
through. All we have to do is make sure we get there in time,
before the bribed agents’ shift ends.’

‘Wow,’ Tiffany said quietly. Talk about
planning – their plot was about as complex as any of the stories in
the crime dramas she liked to watch on TV.

‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about
Rolando.’

Tiffany tried to glare at James but couldn’t.
How did he manage to look so sweet and awkwardly repentant when
she’d seen him perfectly poised as he commanded a police officer at
gun point only minutes ago? She repressed the sudden urge to kiss
him and settled for another question instead. ‘Are there any other
secrets I should know about? Any other stops?’

James shook his head. ‘No, it’s straight to
Texas and then into Mexico as soon as we get rid of this pain in
the ass cop.’

The hospital loomed ahead, and James slowed
the car, following the police cruiser into the parking lot. He
brought the Saturn to a halt a few spaces away from the cruiser as
Rolando and the cop emerged.

‘Everything OK?’ James asked when Rolando and
the cop approached the car. The outline of the policeman’s handgun
bulged beneath Rolando’s T-shirt, tucked into the waistband of his
jeans. ‘Yeah,’ Rolando replied.

‘Alright. Both of you get into the back seat
then. Rolando, make sure that he doesn’t try anything funny.’

They obeyed. ‘Hey,’ James said, casting a
glance into the rearview mirror at the police officer. ‘Take off
your uniform shirt.’ The cop obeyed, stripping to the white T-shirt
he wore beneath and stuffing his brown uniform top beneath his
feet. James backed the car out of its parking space and pulled out
of the hospital parking lot, back onto the highway.

‘What are you looking for?’ Tiffany asked
when James pulled open the glove box and began rummaging through it
with one hand while he kept the other on the wheel. ‘I’ll get it
for you.’

‘An MP3 player,’ he replied. ‘It’s in there
somewhere.’

Tiffany found it. ‘Give it to the cop,’ James
said when she offered it to him.

She passed it into the back seat. ‘Put the
headphones on and turn it up all the way,’ James instructed. ‘If
you take them out or turn the music off, you’re dead.’

The police officer obeyed with a frown, and
soon the muffled sound of rock music filled the air. It would be
much too loud for him to hear any conversation in the car. ‘Make
sure he doesn’t watch our mouths,’ James added.

Rolando nodded.

‘It’s about three and a half hours to the
Texas border,’ James said. ‘We’ll get rid of the cop there so he
can get back to work before things start to look suspicious. Then
we’ll high-tail it for the Mexican border.’

‘Are you sure we should let him go that
soon?’ Rolando asked. ‘We’ll still have about nine hours of driving
just to get to Mexico after that.’

‘He’ll have a hard time keeping the money we
give him – and probably his job, too – if he talks,’ James said,
shooting a glare at the officer via the rearview mirror.

Rolando appeared thoughtful, but eventually
shrugged. ‘Make that nine and half. We need to make a detour near
San Antonio.’

James frowned. ‘Why?’

‘I need to stop at my cousin’s place. That’s
where I hid the money.’

James’ blue eyes widened. ‘What the hell are
you talking about?’ he demanded, his voice suddenly sharp. ‘The
money was in the woods where we left it. I checked the bag when I
brought it out.’

‘Did you look past the top layer of bills?’
Rolando asked.

James gripped the wheel so hard his knuckles
went white, and Tiffany feared the steering wheel would snap in
half. ‘No,’ he replied. ‘Tell me what the hell you’re talking
about.’

‘I had to make sure that you didn’t go back
to Mississippi, get the money for yourself and skip the country
without me,’ Rolando explained. ‘So I took most of the cash and
left it with my cousin in Texas.’

Tiffany dared to glance at James out of the
corner of her eye and saw that his face had gone red. ‘You idiot,’
he said, ‘you left all that money with some
cousin
?’

‘Relax,’ Rolando replied, ‘it’s in a locked
trunk, and she doesn’t know what’s inside. I paid her a few
thousand bucks to keep it hidden and told her I’d pay her more when
I came back for it.’

‘You knew I was in New York orchestrating the
next bank robbery!’ James said angrily. He looked like he wanted to
yell, but the cop might have heard if he’d done so. ‘There was no
reason for you to stray from the plan!’

Rolando shrugged. ‘I wasn’t taking any
chances. It’s not that big of a deal though, man. We’ll just swing
by, throw my cousin a few more bucks and be out of there in a
minute.’

‘So why the hell did you make me go into the
woods after the bag?’ James asked. ‘Why didn’t you just tell me
then?’

‘Well, it still had a little of the money in
it,’ Rolando said. ‘Mostly though, I just wanted a turn with the
hostage.’

The steering wheel actually creaked as James
gripped it, and Tiffany had a sudden vision of it breaking in two
and the car careening off of the highway and into a ditch. ‘What do
you mean ‘a turn’?’ James asked, his voice steely. ‘I told you not
to hurt her.’

‘I wasn’t going to hurt her,’ Rolando said.
‘I was just going to have some fun.’

James turned suddenly to face Tiffany, and
his blue eyes searched her body, eyeing her insufficient clothing
and exposed flesh without lust for once. ‘Why didn’t you say
anything?’ he asked. ‘What did he do to you?’

Tiffany resisted the urge to shrink away from
James’ burning blue gaze. ‘He tried to force me to have sex with
him,’ she said in a small voice. ‘He stopped when the police
officer showed up.’

James broke into a string of vicious
expletives.

‘Hey, you had your turn!’ Rolando said from
the back seat. ‘I saw you with your pants down around your knees,
so don’t act so high and mighty!’

James gripped the steering wheel harder than
ever as a thick vein bulged at his temple. ‘Shut up before I blow
your fucking head off, Rolando.’

****

James brought the car to a sudden stop at the
edge of a small town near the Texas border. Still fuming, he spoke
in clipped tones. ‘Take the headphones off.’

The police officer didn’t hear, of course.
Rolando seized the thin cords and yanked the headphones from his
ears. The cop frowned at them as they fell into his lap and rubbed
a hand against his forehead, as if the music had given him a
headache. ‘It’s about time,’ he said.

‘Rolando, give him some cash and get him out
of the car.’

Rolando and the police officer argued over
the amount until James threatened to shoot them both. Eventually,
the police officer was turned out into the parking lot with the
duffel bag, packed with twenty-five thousand dollars. ‘How am I
supposed to get back from here?’ he asked, glaring at James through
the driver’s side window.

James shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Take a bus,
take a damn plane for all I care. You have enough cash to figure it
out on your own.’

The police officer opened his mouth to speak
again, but James cut him off. ‘You tell anyone about us and you’ll
have a hard time holding onto that money. You might even go to jail
yourself.’ He quickly rolled up the window and pulled out of the
parking space, leaving the officer behind.

****

‘This cousin of yours,’ James said late that
afternoon as the city of San Antonio faded into the background
behind them, ‘does she live alone, or are we going to have to deal
with a whole house full of people?’ He sounded irritated by the
idea.

‘Alone,’ Rolando answered. ‘Both of her
parents died within the past year, and now she lives in their house
by herself out in the middle of nowhere.’

The house really was in the middle of
nowhere. It was a little yellow-sided one story structure that
hardly stood out against the scrubby Texas landscape. ‘Are you sure
this is it?’ James asked as they neared it.

‘Yeah,’ Rolando nodded.

The car slowed as James guided it into the
driveway, parking it next to a small Honda that had seen better
days. ‘Go in and get the money,’ he said, glaring at Rolando.

‘Don’t you want to come in?’ Rolando asked.
‘Get a drink and maybe a sandwich or something? Take a piss?’

‘We’re just stopping to get the money, not
taking a tour!’ James barked.

‘Are you sure?’

‘You’re right,’ James said suddenly,
unbuckling his seatbelt and opening his door. ‘There is something I
want to get out for.’ He stepped out of the car, stretching, and
faced Rolando. Then he drew back his fist and let it fly into his
jaw.

Rolando crumpled to the ground, moaning and
clutching his face. When he looked up, blood was streaming from
between his fingers. ‘What the hell did you do that for?’ he
demanded.

James cast a deliberate glance at Tiffany.
‘Touch her again and I’ll kill you.’

Rolando sputtered, spitting blood onto the
ground. ‘I didn’t try to do anything with the hostage that you
didn’t! I was just–’

‘She’s not a hostage,’ James said. ‘She’s
here because she wants to be.’

Rolando’s jaw went slack as he stared.
‘
What
?’

‘She’s coming to Mexico with us,’ James said.
‘She’s mine.’

She’s mine
. Tiffany’s knees quivered,
despite the fact that she was still sitting down in the car.

Rolando stumbled to his feet, wiping blood
from his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘How the hell was I
supposed to know? You said you were taking a hostage.’

James cleared his eyes of hair with an
irritated flip of his head. ‘Now you know.’

Rolando looked as if he wanted to argue
further, but the little yellow house’s screen door interrupted,
opening with a
creak.
A head poked out, wide-eyed.
‘Rolando?’

The girl who had emerged from the house was
young, maybe even a couple years younger than Tiffany. Her dark,
straight hair reached just past her shoulders, and her even darker
eyes were wide with surprise. She wore a white and red printed
sundress appropriate for the warm southern Texas weather.

‘Marianna,’ Rolando said. ‘I’m here for the
trunk.’

She nodded, eyeing his bleeding lip
reproachfully. ‘Come in.’

James leaned to look at Tiffany through the
window. ‘You come inside too,’ he told her. ‘She looks about your
size. She should have something you can wear.’ He eyed her breasts
through the inadequate cover of her thin, damaged shirt.

Tiffany stepped out of the car. She
desperately needed to use the bathroom anyway.

Despite the heat outside, the interior of the
little house was air-conditioned to perfection. Tiffany’s nipples
hardened in the cool air, more visible than ever beneath the
semi-transparent fabric of her shirt. Marianna eyed her cousin and
his two companions curiously, and her eyes slowed and widened
slightly when they traveled over Tiffany’s bust.

‘You have the trunk?’ Rolando asked.

Marianna nodded. ‘Yeah.’

‘Hey,’ James said. Marianna’s eyes snapped
from her cousin back to him almost immediately. ‘Do you have a
shirt or something she could wear?’ he asked, indicating
Tiffany.

‘I think I’ve got something,’ Marianna
replied. ‘Be right back with it.’ She turned on her heel and
sashayed down a short hallway, disappearing behind a door. When she
emerged, she carried a small fabric bundle. ‘Here you go,’ she
said, handing it to James while ignoring Tiffany completely.

‘Thanks,’ he murmured. ‘Tiffany, do you want
to go put this on?’ He turned back to Marianna. ‘You have a
bathroom she can use?’

Marianna tipped her head in the direction she
had come from. ‘First door on the right.’

Tiffany took the bundle from James and headed
back to the bathroom. There, she unfurled the lilac-colored
T-shirt. She shed her ruined top gratefully and slipped into
Marianna’s, which smelled freshly laundered. It fit her well, she
saw as she surveyed her reflection in the mirror above the sink,
but it didn’t hide the fact that she was braless. Oh well, at least
it wasn’t gaping open in the front. She looked away from her
obvious nipples to scrutinize the rest of her reflection.